The World

✦ Associations

Earth / Saturn

✦ Keywords

Transcendence, wholeness, fulfillment, absolute integration of disparate parts, the self in union with the universe, completing a major cycle.

✦ Quote

Eternity isn't some later time. Eternity isn't even a long time. Eternity has nothing to do with time. Eternity is that dimension of here and now that all thinking in temporal terms cuts off. — Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

✦ Meaning

✦ Completion and Wholeness

Here we are, at the end. Here is the completion of a cycle and completion within the self. Here is the wholeness of all our disparate parts and the unity of our soul with the soul of all things. Here is transcendence. Here is the end and the beginning, the alpha and the omega. Here is eternity.

✦ The Difficulty of Explaining the Infinite

If all that seems a bit abstract, it's because the World card is hard (or impossible) to explain in finite terms, and that's because it represents something that is not finite, something that is infinite. If you've ever tried to contemplate the infinite expanse of outer space and found your brain glitching out like a computer short on RAM, that's what it's like to try to put the World into words. But try we must, and to make this attempt we must go back to the beginning.

✦ Historical Depictions

Even in the very first Tarot decks, there were multiple depictions of the World card. Some showed an image of the Holy Grail, the mystical cup of eternal life that would heal the land. Others bore a rendition of New Jerusalem, the heaven on earth promised at the end of the Christian apocalypse as envisioned in Revelation. In both cases, the World card symbolically represented the end of a long struggle by a reunification: the barren land is reunified with the Grail waters that had once made it fertile, and humankind is reunited in New Jerusalem with God, with whom they had once walked in the Garden of Eden. So, in other (grossly oversimplified) words, the World is an end to separation.

✦ Modern Imagery and Christ in Majesty

In more modern versions of the Tarot, the design of the World card shifted to the image now familiar to most of us today: a nude figure floating in the center of a laurel wreath, surrounded in the corners by a human, a lion, a bull, and an eagle. This highly symbolic and esoteric image has its roots in an old and popular motif in Christian art known as Christ in Majesty, which, like New Jerusalem, is derived from a vision in the Book of Revelation. Christ in Majesty depicts Jesus enthroned in heaven in the center of a circle or mandorla, an almond-shaped ring symbolizing a kind of full-body halo. The ring was often flanked in the corners by the four aforementioned beasts, which are the symbols of the four evangelists of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

✦ The Dancer and Anima Mundi

The Tarot, however, in a radical and deliciously sacrilegious move, replaces Jesus with a nude, dancing person who in esoteric traditions was held to be neither male nor female but the pure soul which exists beyond man-made categorizations of gender and all the false conceptions of binaries. This dancer is our own soul and also the universal soul, the spirit of all life, also known as the Anima Mundi or World Soul. The World Soul, a concept of spiritual unity and transcendence found across numerous religions and philosophies, is where the World card gets its name.

✦ Four Beasts, Zodiac and Elements

The four beasts also gain new significance in the Tarot, representing the four fixed signs of the zodiac—Taurus (the bull), Leo (the lion), Scorpio (the eagle), and Aquarius (the human)—and through them the four elements of earth, fire, water, and air, respectively. Those familiar with the elemental correspondence of the Minor Arcana will further connect these elements with the four suits of Pentacles (earth), Wands (fire), Cups (water), and Swords (air). In the World, all elements are present, unified as one whole by the circle, with the fifth element of Spirit represented by the central dancing figure. Likewise, all four suits are present, surrounding the fifth suit of the Major Arcana as the dancer—the entire Tarot in one card. The circle by which all are joined is further symbolic of eternity, the immortal soul, the infinitely repeating cycle of energy, and the universal divine that has no beginning and no end.

✦ Transcendence, Paradox, and Experience

The World, then, is a symbolic unification of all parts, a completion and a totality. It's not an end to separation, but a realization that no separation has ever existed. All categories, all binaries, all opposites, all are constructs of the human consciousness that we impose on ourselves and the world in an effort to parse the grand unthinkable mystery into something we can comfortably understand—an oxymoronic attempt if ever there was one. Like the prior analogy of the computer short on RAM, it's impossible for our mortal and temporal brains to comprehend that which transcends comprehension. Joseph Campbell puts this catch-22 best: "The transcendent transcends all of these categories of thinking... The word 'God' properly refers to what transcends all thinking, but the word 'God' itself is something thought about." In other words, we can't think of something that defies thought. By attempting to conceptualize it, we intrinsically fail to conceptualize it. (Brain glitching yet?) So if the transcendence of the World is something that cannot be encapsulated in thought or in words, perhaps it can only be experienced. In the World, we slip free of the false constraints of binaries and categories, of opposites and true/false, of the illusion of separation. We feel, if only for a moment, the perfection of our essence beyond these temporal and physical bounds. We recognize our connection with the World Soul, the collective spiritual energy of all things, even if we don’t understand it. We are complete, as we have been all along, but now we’re aware of it. We are transcendent and liberated, free.

✦ Mundane Meanings and Cycles

As for the mundane meanings of this card in readings, the World refers to a feeling of wholeness and completion within ourselves or our lives. It can represent the attainment of a higher state of self-knowledge or a kind of 'level up' in our consciousness, where we are able to exist as ourselves beyond the discordant categorizations of society and in harmony with our truth. The World can also mark the fulfillment or conclusion of an important cycle in our lives, something coming into its full bloom of manifestation, and in this way can be a powerful indicator of success and accomplishment on our chosen path. Conversely, the World can simply reflect that a journey is ending—no value judgement attached—having come to its full and complete termination. The card signals closure, a matter wrapped up and complete within itself. And here again we return to that circle, which in our card is the ouroboros or snake eating its tail, a symbol of wholeness and completion and infinity, but it is also the shape of the zero. The zero which is nothing, the absence of anything and the potential for everything, the cosmic portal of the Fool. And so the completed cycle of the World wraps back around into the complete potential of the Fool, and the end becomes the beginning. The omega becomes the alpha. A new cycle infinitely begins.